The present invention relates to the art of providing a sterile medium for the transfer of bacteriological cultures and specimens from one container to another container without permitting contamination of the culture or specimen during the transfer procedure. More specifically, the present invention relates to providing a sterile inoculating loop by which the cultures and specimens may be transported during the transfer procedure.
Traditionally, inoculating loops have merely been long thin pieces of wire looped at one end which have been sterilized and used to transport cultures from one container to another container. The inoculating loops have been sterilized by the exposure of the wire to an external source of heat by which the wire is heated to the desired sterilization temperature.
The external source of heat most widely used for heating the inoculating loop is the laboratory Bunson Burner. Ordinarily, sterilization by use of a Bunson Burner requires heating the inoculating loop over the Bunson Burner for from ten to fifteen seconds before each transfer. Accordingly, laboratory procedures requiring numerous transfers of cultures and specimens are very laborious and time consuming using the traditional method of sterilizing the inoculating loop.
Further, the proper sterilization of the inoculating loop requires uniform heating over the length of the inoculating loop. Obviously, the localized source of heat provided by the Bunson Burner makes uniform heating difficult. Moreover, in laboratory procedures requiring numerous time consuming transfers, uniformity of heating is often sacrificed in practice to the desire to quickly heat the inoculating loop.
In addition to the traditional Bunson Burner, the prior art has included more sophisticated sources of external heating of inoculating loops. For example, a gas burner as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,893,807, issued on July 8, 1975 to Mr. Bedrich Cizinsky of Prague, Czechoslovakia, provides an apparatus for uniformly heating an inoculating loop, which apparatus intermittently provides a gas flame in the presence of the inoculating loop.
Another apparatus for external heating of an inoculating loop is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,436,171, issued on June 25, 1965 to Mr. T. E. Weicheselbaum and Mr. Phillip L. Varney. The Weichselbaum and Varney patent teaches the external heating of the inoculating loop by providing an infra-red heating device in which the inoculating loop may be heated to sterilization temperature.